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Fortress 4220Home \ Fortresses \ April 2000 \ 4220
Location: Bellows Beach |
Saturday, April 22, 2000
Low tide was around 10:30 and I got there a little after 11:00. This time,
after the disaster the day before, I was out for vengeance against the tide. Not
only did I build farther from the tide, risking a non-flooded session,
but for the first time, I decided to put some serious engineering into building
a foundation that could stand up to the ruthless Hawaiian tide. This was
fortress #6.
-Shut up and get to the pictures-
For the first 90 minutes, I did nothing but construct a huge foundation made up of five 5-gallon bucket molds (2 in the front and 3 behind those) and filled in the cracks with cement. Then I created two molds on top of that big, solid base. This was all a real pain because of the distance from the water. I must have carried 12-15 five gallon buckets of water to the construction site. (I can't remember for sure, but I think back then I was stupid and was dumping the water into the sand, then placing the resulting cement into the molds. Now I fill a bucket only about half way with water and throw the sand in it and mix it in the bucket, allowing none of the water to seep into the ground.) Then I carved the two molds on top, resulting in a fortress with the bottom a good 16" off the ground. I returned to the triangular columns similar to fortress 4020 for the front gate. I took a knife that I never used and put a 90° bend into it. This almost immediate became one of the most-used tools in my set.
This was definitely the best fortress to date. For the first time, with the exception of one Kahuna head, which I did not like, the futuristic theme was prevalent throughout the fortress, due mostly to a more futuristic design of the two towers and the introduction of a futuristic energy generator. (I would repeat this tower design again in SF6030.) I also carved a nice "blast door" on the front for a hanger, presumably for incoming ships, and a grooved, industrial pumping structure running down the back of the fortress from the front gate to the flood base, all true to the target effect of Star Wars/Doom futurism.
I had one big wave come out of nowhere and slam into the front before I could get a picture and had to re-carve most of the front, including the blast door. (The original door looked better.) Then I took a bunch of pictures, even though I wasn't finished, in case it happened again.
There were lots of people at the beach that day and I had at least a dozen people stop and say how much they dug the fortress. At one point there were about eight people standing in a circle around the fortress, talking about it and my tools. One guy said remarked how my newly created bent knife tool "used to be a knife," to which another replied that it still was a knife. Before this turned into a huge philosophical discussion about what it is to be a knife, a guy wearing a wet suit changed the subject by offering to take a picture of me standing next to the fortress. This is the first ever photo of me with one of my creations.
The castle flooded a little around 5:00 pm, and I was waiting for it to flood again while I finished carving the last details. I was getting concerned, however, that the waves would ruin the front before it would flood the fortress. Then a kid, probably ten, who had been standing around the fortress earlier, returned and proceeded to construct a rather large mound of sand in front of the fortress that served well as a wave breaker. His name was David, and he kicked ass helping protect the fortress from the water--his wave breaker did indeed save the front a few times. Eventually, his dad came back and he had to leave, but I thanked him for his enthusiastic efforts.
About 6:30, after everyone had left the beach, I was taking a few final pictures. I wanted a shot of the tubes draining so I kicked a bucket of water over to flood the fortress, then laid down, flat on the sand, in front of the fortress and got a good shot of water pouring from the drainage tubes. One second after I snapped the picture, a huge wave came in, shot up through my shorts and around me, pounded the fortress, and flooded it with an spectacular amount of water. It was a true "1000-year flood wave," as I call them. It was beautiful. I kicked the overturned bucket out of the way and took a picture from behind of the resulting pool of water. I wanted to take one more picture of the front, now that the drainage system was in full gear, but alas, I was out of film.
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